PEOPLE SPECIAL............... TRUE Grit (2)

TRUE Grit  (2)
 

Many students across India, from economically challenged families, are now conquering limitations to achieve pinnacles of success. 

Diligent Daughter

Decisions determine destiny — how true these words are for Poonam Dhull and her family. Instead of giving in to pressure from relatives and villagers, Poonam’s father Suresh Pal, a driver, decided not to marry her off but encourage her to study further. Which her eldest child has done with panache. Earlier this month Poonam flew off to University of South Carolina to do her doctorate in chemistry. The icing? A $50,000 scholarship.
    It has been an arduous journey for Poonam. Sharing a room with her parents and her two siblings; her father’s meagre pension from the army to which her mother added her bit by teaching students at home... “We changed eight homes in the past few years in this very city [Chandigarh]. My father was helpless. So I also started teaching from the time I was in class 12,” Poonam says.
    But there was support. At home her mother egged her on and at Panjab University, P Venugopalan, her teacher and mentor at the chemistry department. But money was always her problem. The family spent 3 lakh — nearly all its savings — in applying to various US universities.
    The family’s stress on education is paying off. Son Devender has just completed his BTech and younger daughter Ritu is studying chartered accountancy.

STUDYING: PhD at University of South Carolina
FAMILY BACKGROUND:
Father a driver, mother homemaker
“My family had faith in me”
Poonam Dhull

— Viney Sharma